


Lessons Learned, Questions Answered

by AnotherDayInHistory



Category: The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:39:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherDayInHistory/pseuds/AnotherDayInHistory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that Gwen and Blake learn about each other throughout the course of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blake Takes Ten Minutes of Persuading to Get Out of Bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lizwontcry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizwontcry/gifts).



> Inspired by "30 OTP" questions posted on lizwontcry's tumblr; I took five of them and answered them for my new OTP :). This story is basically going to be five separate moments; not so much connecting so if you want to read just one you can do that! See you all on Wednesday with another update!
> 
> Thanks for all the kind words in the comments folks; I love comments so if you enjoyed the story (and even if you didn't) please comment and tell me why (or why you didn't like it).

Gwen is deep in slumber, warm and comfortable, when the alarm blares through her subconscious and startles her into wakefulness With a slight sigh and shake of her head, her arm snakes out to turn it off before she starts to sit up. With three boys, she’s learned how to wake quickly and easily, no matter what time in the night she got to sleep (and last night it had been late after Blake finally collapsed on the bed pulling her against his sweaty chest). Just as she starts to take her feet out of the covers and sit up, a strong singularly tattooed arm pulls her back and a scruffy face nuzzles into the side of her neck. She admits she startles in surprise for a moment (after all, this is the first time Blake has stayed all night; it’s the first time since they started having sex that she didn’t have the boys and quite frankly she wasn’t going to have a man sleep overnight with her children in the house just yet). She grins and hisses at the bit of burn on her sensitive skin.

 

“ Good morning,” she murmurs, tilting her head a little to the side so he can softly kiss underneath her earlobe. She receives no reply but a grunt as Blake’s large hand flows from her shoulder down to her waist before lightly skimming her ass. She grins again, biting her lip when the edge of one of his calluses scratches slightly at her smooth skin She arches her ass back up against his body, feeling his morning erection against the small of her back. He groans again, low and sexy, and she grinds a few more times back against him before turning around in his arms and wrapping her own arms around his neck, her hands going into his curls and lightly scratching the scalp.

 

She never thought she’d say this about a man, but there in the morning dawn’s light with the sun skimming over his body, he looks beautiful. His face is scruffy with a mixture of brown and grey hairs, and his curls have gone a bit untamed throughout the night without excessive amounts of product in them to beat them into submission. He’s naked, with a couple nail marks down his chest and a large purple bruise at the edge of his neck and collarbone where it will be (probably) covered by a shirt (he’d let out a choked half-breath when she’d done it that she’d never heard before and his dick had twitched hard inside of her; he’d come harder than he had the past times they’d done this and she put a mental checkmark next to the question box of whether he liked marks).

 

At her staring, he cracks one eye open, half grinning in that way that brings out his dimples and never fails to make a flutter fly through her heart. His hands wind around to the small of her back and he pulls her closer still with a hoarse, low, drawled, “ Gimme a kiss.” She beams and complies, and it’s mostly tongue and morning breath (because one thing she’s learned over the past two times of them sleeping together is how much he loves tongue kisses; one day she’s going to try to make him come from kissing alone and by god with the right kind of kissing and a little grinding she thinks she might do it), but it’s wonderful just the same. 

 

They make out like that for a few seconds before Gwen decides she absolutely has to get up if she wants to make her meeting with InStyle in time. With a quick peck and a sigh of regret, she starts to leave his arms.

 

It’s immediately apparent in this first morning of waking up together that he’s not going to let that happen. With a sleepy grin, he pulls her back, flipping her under him and all but collapsing over her, tucking his nose into her neck and putting his arms around her waist in a surprisingly submissive gesture (another thing she’s learning about Blake slowly but surely is how much Miranda had him totally whipped and wrapped around her finger and how much touch and tenderness he was denied. Maybe they had great sex—but she thinks probably not given how grateful he seems to be for every orgasm she gives him—but one thing she knows is that Miranda didn’t touch him enough). She huffs out a laugh at his move, scratching lightly into his hair and grinning more when he lets out a low rumble that might be a purr. She feels his breathing deepen and him start to go back to sleep. 

 

“Blake I need to get up, I’ve got an interview in a couple hours and I need to get ready” she whispers into the dawn, her first words spoken that morning. He stretches a little, lifting his head and curling his hands into her hair with a sleepy grin. He kisses her again, tongue searching out hers. With a laugh, she kisses back for a moment before pushing him off her. “ You’re making it very, _very,_ hard for me to get up and take a shower and put on my makeup,” She murmurs to him, leaning her forehead against his.  He cracks both eyes open now, brilliant sparkling blue meeting hers. He kisses her cheek then her lips again before murmuring against them.

 

“ I ain’t a morning person,  and you’re warm and comfortable and I ain’t lettin’ you go,” He drawls lowly before tucking his nose back into her neck like that’s that. She hears him start to doze again and she shakes him harder.

 

“ Like seriously you dork, “ she laughs, “ I have to get up and do my makeup.” He murmurs something into her neck then and she pulls on his hair a little to get him to raise his head and repeat it. He looks her right in the eyes.

 

“ Ya look just as gorgeous without makeup ya know,” he drawls. Her mouth falls open a little and she can’t help but be a little overwhelmed. Gavin had always liked her better in makeup, had always encouraged her to put it on as soon as she woke up in the morning and every time they went out even for groceries. It had always been a bit of a sore spot for her, the fact that her husband of thirteen years didn’t seem to like the natural her at all but instead was in love with a made-up fantasy (as much as she usually loved makeup sometimes she thought that’s what it was and sometimes she didn’t want to wear it but always did with Gavin). Unexpectedly, she feels her eyes fill a little and she cups his cheeks in her hands and strokes his cheekbones with her thumbs. He smiles at her, all dimples and crinkles around his eyes, and she finds herself falling in love, touch by touch, stage by stage. 

 

She kisses him then, and with the kissing and the grinding against his erection and the low groans he makes and the soft whimpers out of her mouth, it’s ten minutes before she manages to persuade him to let her go. As she slips away from the bed to go take a shower, she watches with soft eyes as he curls around her pillow and tucks his head into it with a sigh. 

 

As she showers, she decides she’s going to go a little more natural with the makeup today (though she won’t stop putting it on; that kind of step is too much for her right now). As she applies it, however, she thinks that maybe someday down the line she’ll go most of the day without makeup just for him (but for her too because fuck Gavin and his desire for fake made-up playboy model women). _‘Who knows,’_ She thinks, _‘maybe i’ll even wear his camo hat.’_


	2. Blake Admires The Hell out Of Gwen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OTP Question: Who admires the hell out of the other and thinks they're the bravest person they've ever met? 
> 
> In other words, Blake admires Gwen, finally tells her, and they make a million fangirls flail madly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all of the comments everyone! I've been visiting family, so I haven't been as active online as I want to be. But, I will be back with another update on Sunday when i'm back home! On another note, of COURSE this fix had to deal with the video because no proper Shefani fangirl would leave a story about it unwritten. This is probably not what happened, but who knows.

As strange as it is to say, Blake admired Gwen from the second he met her. He tends to have a good sense about people (Miranda aside, but she’d changed throughout the years into a person he didn’t even know) and from the minute he shakes her hand in the Voice production studios, he knows she’s a force to be reckoned with. She just had a baby and she’s fit as ever, dressed to the nines and meeting his handshake with a firm one of her own. She discusses the progress of the show that day with grace and eloquence, detailing what things she thought needed to be changed from her research and what she thought was working.

As he gets to know her better throughout Season 7, he realizes that she’s simultaneously the sweetest and most badass person he’s ever known. He’s seen her push off men in bars with a disdainful “oh please,” has seen her take overly arrogant contestants down with a glare down at them through ruby red lips. However, he’s also seen her Facetime with her kids backstage, making screwed up unattractive faces at her youngest just to get him to laugh and being tackled practically to the ground by Kingston and Zuma when they saw her at work. He’s seen her work the stage full of men with a twist of her hips and meet his barbs with equal ones of her own, but he’s also seen her tear up at a particularly good song and laugh herself to happy tears at a funny video on YouTube. Gwen is a dichotomy wrapped in ruby red, and he loves it.

Even as he pushes the spark of attraction towards her to the very furthest back of his subconscious during Season 7, they can’t help but become fast friends. He finds himself closer to her than he’s been to anyone except Adam and Luke in a long time, and he relishes it. While Adam indulges his need for touch (he likes hugs; they’re warm and comfortable and they make him feel grounded, so sue him) and Luke his need for good old fashioned bro-time, Gwen indulges his need for long conversation and giggling over something stupid. He remembers one evening when all of the judges had gone out after one of the live shows. Everyone else had brought their wives and girlfriends but Gavin couldn’t make it (Gwen had said the words with slightly hurt, painful eyes and Blake had determined he was going to do anything he could to make her laugh that night, anything to get that hopeless defeated look off her face) and Miranda had been on tour (again last minute; Blake was getting sick of it especially since they were meant to be trying for a baby soon and Miranda kept putting it off. Blake wanted it, so badly), so Gwen and Blake had naturally been seated together to keep the balance of the table right. They’d gotten on a tangent about the similarities between rock and country, and before they knew it it was an hour later and they looked up to realize they hadn’t touched their food.

Blake had made a joke then about Gwen being good for his diet, and she’d stuck her tongue out before shoving one of her french fries in his mouth (Gwen, he’d discovered, despite her size, could eat more than anyone else he’d ever met, but she never seemed to put on weight. He later learned she exercised like mad to work off her energy and just had one of those metabolisms that burned everything off. That’s one of the things he later realized he loved about her; the fact that she didn’t eat like a typical A-list Hollywood actress who was terrified of putting on one pound).

In Season 8, even as his marriage is falling apart, even as he has dreams of tiny baby sized shoes and rocking a child to sleep in chair, even as Miranda crushes those dreams with the heel of her cowgirl boots, he thinks about how much he admires Gwen. Even as he’s drowning his sorrows in rum and whisky and requiring Adam to drive him home from bars with a concerned look in his eye, she comes to mind every once in awhile.

Gwen’s back on the show in Season 9 just as his marriage song is tolling its death knell. She hugs him when she sees him, smiling wide and holding on a little too tight when he can’t help but bury his face in her hair (it smells like cinnamon and a warm fireplace and it takes everything he has not to close his eyes and inhale deeply). She brushes his hand with hers (she doesn’t notice the goose flesh that prickles over his arms at her touch) and asks him how he’s doing. When he makes a joke (that’s all he can do at this point, it’s that or cry and he’s done enough of that in Adam’s arms for God to take away his man-card, thank you very much), she laughs even though it wasn’t very good and edges past him, her body brushing his as she goes to say hi to Adam. He pushes the attraction down again firmly and only admires her ability to cheer him up, thinking of the bottle of whisky at home with his name on it.

He comes across her late in the audition process that season sitting in a corner sobbing. His mouth drops open (because he’s never seen her lose it like this; she’s usually a consummate professional if nothing else) and he silently goes to sit beside her, body ever so slightly touching hers. She startles a little and leans into him, sniffling in her tears. When she tells him that she kicked Gavin out the night before, he rubs her arm. When she says she thinks he’s been cheating on her, he bumps her shoulder with his. When she says that she doesn’t know what she’s going to do now, he wraps his arms around her in one of his patented bear hugs and tells her everything’s going to be ok. Ten minutes later (after she ‘had her little nutty’ as she says while wiping her eyes and straightening the wrinkles out of his shirt), she’s back to being professional Gwen, and if no one notices the lack of happiness in her eyes through her smile, it just makes him admire the hell out of her strength.

They spend time together between the live shows and blind auditions and Blake eventually gets the courage to ask her out shyly (actually it’s more like he blurts out ‘doyouwannamaybegoforcoffeeoneday’ and she has to ask him three times what the hell he’s saying and then misinterprets it as being a friend thing before he rubs his hand over the back of his neck and says to her that he was ‘thinkin’ more like a date’ actually) and she accepts. They make out in his house after the fourth date (she confesses to him that she’s actually very traditional and that she’s only had two boyfriends so she wants to move slowly; he confesses that that’s fine with him even though he recognizes the signs in himself of falling in love too quickly), and he admires the strength of her body as she arches up into him, the strength of her arms as she uses them, wrapped around his neck, to haul herself up to better mingle her tongue with his. He admires her thigh muscles as his hands make their way down them and he admires her smile as she laughs at a joke he makes when they finally break apart and she realizes she got red lipstick all around his mouth and down his neck.

The relationship grows more serious throughout the live shows. They have sex (and its mind blowingly amazing and Blake can’t get enough of it and he admires her beauty when he brings her to three orgasms back to back with his mouth and she pants down at him, lips swollen and mascara running and face flushed), they hold hands, Gwen falls asleep with her head on his shoulder and him with his head in her lap (she scratches her fingernails through his scalp in exactly the way he likes without him having to tell her and he admires her perceptiveness).

He admires Gwen, yet he’s never told her. It’s months later, when they’re sitting on a cliffside in Oklahoma looking out at the wilderness that he decides to tell her. He looks at her. She’s beautiful. She has on very little makeup (which honestly is one of his favorite looks on her, she loves fashion and makeup and he wouldn’t ever change that but this is the real Gwen, the Gwen he wants to see for the rest of his life), and she’s staring out at the beauty, her eyes wide and a soft smile on her face. They’ve had a wonderful trip, from going to Raelynn’s engagement party (where they’d been like any other couple and no one had asked them for pictures or autographs and Gwen had chastely kissed him once and no one had even noticed) to driving down to Oklahoma on a wonderful road trip. She’d climbed up to this cliff with him, even though she confessed to being a little afraid of heights (she’d held his hand and squeezed it hard but he didn’t mind, just wrapped his arms around her from behind and told her that he had her).

When he’d brought her to Oklahoma, he’d wanted to show her why he loved it out here, wanted to show her the beauty and the solitude and the silence, and as he watched her, he could see that she loved it. He thought about all she’d done for him, from wearing camo to going camping to taking a road trip in a Ford truck to conquering her fear of heights, and he thought about how little she thought of herself sometimes (she’d told him not long ago that Gavin would constantly make cracks about her gaining weight with how much she ate and that it’d made her eat almost nothing around him while hiding her food in their guest house and he’d been filled with anger inside at the man while he fed her another bite of chips and guacamole and kissed her with avocado lips right after she’d swallowed), and decided to tell her, right then and there, how much he admired her, and make her listen.

He tangled their fingers again and she looked over at him smiling wide. “ You,” he began, “ are amazin’, ya know?” His drawl had gotten thicker the deeper he’d gone down South and she’d gasped as he’d called her ‘darlin’ the night before as he’d entered her on their bed. She blushed then at his words, looking down at the stone floor they sat on. He cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “ When I first met ya, I admired the hell out a’ ya. You’re so badass an’ independent and strong, and you eat more’n I do and can drink me under the table and I love it. Yer every man’s dream, and I’m so grateful yer mine.” Her eyes had filled with tears then, and she’d kissed him, their teeth gnashing together as he wasn’t expecting it. She cradled the back of his head and tumbled them onto the stone ground, straddling his hips and scratching her nails through his hair. He groaned, meeting her kiss with equal fervor. A couple seconds later, she broke away and sniffled.

“ You can’t just say things like that,” She murmured into his lips. He grinned against them.

“ Wh’not?” He drawled and she laughed a little, hands running through his curls under his hat.

“ Because it makes me really want to say three words that I can’t take back,” His grin fades and he gazes into her eyes. He knows that she takes relationships extraordinarily seriously, that she doesn’t call just anyone her boyfriend and that she enters into sex with another man only after she’s in it for the long haul. His hands caress the small of her back through her pink camo sweatshirt (she’d requested one from his ranch and he’d happily complied but only after instructing that it come with pink drawstrings and logo because he wanted it to be for her as well as for him), and he kisses her then, ever so gently.

“ Say it, darlin’” she bites her lip, “ ‘Cause i’ve been waitin’ to say it ‘cause I dint wanna scare ya off. “

Taking a deep breath in, she says it. “ I love you,” He grins then, feeling his own eyes fill a little (and that’s another thing about her that he admires; the fact that she doesn’t mind that he likes to cuddle and hug and sometimes gets a little emotional because he feels things so deeply. Miranda minded; she’d always make cracks about him being manly enough). He kisses her again.

“ I love you too,” He says softly, looking at her. She laughs then, bright and happy, before sitting up and tugging him up with her. she sits cross-legged on the stone and manhandles him to sit next to her, which he does with a puzzled expression. She kisses him again, before adjusting her hat and pulling out her phone. “ You know what, fuck em,” she says gleefully, and he laughs while having no idea what she’s talking about, “ Wanna make a lovey dovey Twitter video?” He grins at her, his eyebrows raising. She seems to understand from his look and she positions the phone, pressing record and giggling as he kisses her cheek over and over before sucking lightly on the cheekbone (the way he does her clit that drives her crazy and as her eyes close he knows that although the fans won’t get it she does).

She posts the video when they get back to civilization, still smiling a mile wide with big teeth and crinkling eyes in the way he loves. They watch the brief clip before editing it down to be only a few seconds (he isn’t ready to have millions of fans see them hardcore frenching and neither is she given her blush). He knows they look like besotted idiots and he’s looking at her like she’s his bright star but he doesn’t care. As she pushes post on the video and they watch their views go up and the fans flail, and they laugh and laugh while Gwen eats an entire bowl of popcorn with butter by herself and blake kisses her neck over and over in front of the fireplace. He admired her once, he thought as she dozed in his arms a couple of hours later. He admired her once, now he loved her. She was his everything, and if that made him a silly fanboy then he’d fanboy until the day he died for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments feed the writing monster, and he's very hungry.


	3. Incredible In Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake finds out Gwen is incredible in bed, and she absolutely blows his mind the first time they have sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, on an administrative note: Sorry for the lack of update yesterday! My computer was not letting me type anything without asking for a password every five seconds, and it sucked. However, I finally got it fixed and got this story all done. Look for another update on Wednesday as per usual!
> 
> So this began as a PWP, and devolved into semi-angsty PWP with some schmoop thrown in. What can I say, my muse took me to places that I don't even know.
> 
> Also, this chapter features not-so-nice Miranda and not-great Gavin. I don't know those people; for all I know the both of them could be perfectly nice. No disrespect meant to either; if you don't like reading stories where either of them are the bad guys this chapter may not be for you.

Blake liked sex as much as any guy when he was young. He loved women then; they were warm and soft and curvy and made the most delicious noises when he got them aroused. He admits to sleeping around when he was younger; he first lost his virginity at sixteen and from sixteen until he married his first wife he was what could properly be termed a bit of a cad. He worshipped women at the altar of sex; he made sure they felt good every time he did it with them and he took pride in their arousal (in most cases however his erection and subsequent ejaculation was more a result of his age than any real attraction to them; he knows that now from the wisdom and cynicism that only come with age). However, once he got married until he met Miranda, he was nothing but faithful to her and no one else, despite the fact that she practically killed his sex drive.

 

He loved Miranda with the entire depths of his soul, so deeply that he ignored the way she treated him sometimes (how whipped he was by her and how controlling she was over his every move, like when she made him text her every single night on tour and promise he didn’t sleep with any groupies). He thought Miranda was it for him; he thought she was going to be the person that he spent the rest of his life with. He was prepared to, too. Despite their faults, despite the screaming fights they had or the fact that she sometimes treated him like dog shit, he was nothing but devoted to her. He remembers six months before they got divorced, when she’d been screaming mad at him for one reason or another (he never knew in those final days of their marriage) and he’d spent a virtual fortune on flowers and bottles of expensive tequila, sending them every day to where she was on tour (again, for the fourth time that year; he hadn’t truly seen her for any length of time for at least two months). That first night, both flowers and liquor had come back to him, the bottle of tequila empty but glass broken and the wildflowers burned with a lighter. He’d persisted, even as he felt his eyes fill with what he refused to admit were tears and he’d clutched the $100 worth of flowers to his chest and tried not to cut himself on the broken bottle. He’d sent twice as many flowers the next day along with a note saying I love you. The note had come back with the words crossed out and _Fuck you_ written on it, and the flowers had been chopped up this time and put in a ziplock bag. Still he’d continued; each day had brought a new misfortune to the things he sent her. 

 

What (he admits in hindsight) was one of the worst parts of their marriage was their sex life. When they’d first gotten together, they’d loved each other frequently and passionately with the ease of honeymooners. She’d moaned like a porn star with him and he tried to push away the feeling of wrongness that he’d felt as he came into a tissue after she’d made him pull out of her even though she was on birth control. He remembers thinking even those first few months that he was unsure she was worth leaving his wife for, but he’d done it. After they’d been officially married, that’s when the real Miranda had come out. She’d been vindictive and cruel to him in bed, telling him with a roll of her eyes and a scoff on her honeymoon night that she’d been faking it all along and he’d better learn to do it better if she was “ever gonna birth the babies you want.” He’d tried and tried throughout their marriage, sacrificing his own pleasure (the number of times he’d had to will himself into an  erection around her while thinking of someone else was embarrassing the more he thought about it; the drinking helped so he did a lot of that) in order to try to bring her some. Every effort he made was met with a scoff, and he began to think that sex wasn’t really all that it was cracked up to be after all. Maybe after marriage, this was how it was supposed to be, with cold sheets and space between bodies and arguments over whether to have children. 

 

He remembers catching her with someone else when he surprised her in her hotel room on tour. He’d wanted to make one last ditch effort, wanted to make one last stab at salvaging the refuse of their marriage and trying to make it work. He was going to bring up kids one more time, and then leave it alone (and try to push away the thought of someone calling him Daddy and giggly kisses on his cheek and tiny cowboy boots and oh god just the thought made him maudlin and want to drown himself in vodka). He remembers in perfect clarity the last thing she said to him before he threw her out of his house (“ nice ta know all men aren’t as shitty in bed as ya are; he made me come and I din’t even haft think a’ anyone else.”) He remembers getting near blackout drunk back in L.A. (which he’d hired an expensive private jet to get back to because he needed his best friend and Adam was in L.A. so he was too), forcing Adam to come pick him up and hold him as he raggedly sobbed (in a way not at all manly) before hurling his guts out in Adam’s bathroom.   

 

When he meets Gwen, she’s like a fresh breath of air for his sex life. Even though they don’t have sex until they’ve been dating for almost a month (she’s traditional and has only had two partners and he is still a little raw from Miranda), their make-out sessions become legendary. Blake quickly gets used to the feeling of her tongue in his mouth, the scratch of her nails in his scalp (and that had made him harder than he’d ever been in his life), the sounds of her ragged breaths as she nipped down his neck (and how she knew he liked his kisses with a tiny bit of edge he’ll ever know). He gets used to her giggle as she realizes she got lipstick all over him (she’d been embarrassed after their first long kiss and had admitted she didn’t think it was going to happen that night or else she’d have worn different lipstick and he’d pecked her forehead and grinned down at her while calling her red stains his ‘war wounds’ and she’d laughed, throwing her head back before pulling him down for more), buys the specific brand of makeup wipe she swears gets it off, gets addicted to the warm scent of her hair and the way her body fits so neatly into his. 

 

He remembers the first time they had sex. She had blown his mind in more ways than one. They’d been indulging in another make-out session on the couch, this time with blake underneath her as he legs straddled his hips. She’d worn a skirt that was just edging on too short (he loved how sexy she was even at forty-six and that her style was her own no matter what), and he’d been able to run his large hands up her thighs, massaging them as she ever so gently ground down into him. He’d been so hard, so incredibly hard all because of this woman. He ached to be inside her, yet feared what she’d say when she discovered he really wasn’t all that good at sex. She broken apart from his lips with low whimper, letting out a huffed breath when a string of saliva had connected their lips (from their wet kisses that were honestly more tongue than lips sometimes). She’d stared into his eyes, her own a warm mocha brown flecked with gold, and he’d stared back (not knowing his own eyes were blown wide with arousal and his blue sparkled at her and made her dizzy). Still staring at him, she took his hand from where it was resting on her thigh and brought it to the back zipper of her dress, urging him to pull it down. His mouth had fallen open a little bit (he couldn’t help it, this gorgeous creature actually wanted him to undress her) but he’d complied, asking her lowly to stand up and turn around to face away from him while he stayed sitting and slowly lowered her zipper and unclasped her bra, lavishing her back with kisses as he went. She’d arched into them, and he’d pulled the dress off of her arms, taking the bra with it. He’d sat there for a second, totally awestruck at her pale beauty, and she’d turned, grinning at him. With a wink (surprisingly saucy and that’s one of the things he loved about her; that she could be badass and sassy while being sweet and kind too), she undid her hair, letting her long tresses tumble down her back. His mouth had been dry and he’d swallowed a few times to try to moisten it, not being able to help his eyes roaming up and down her body. 

 

She’d crossed her arms then, hip jutting out. “ Doesn’t seem fair, you being in clothes while i’m not,” she said. She grinned and sauntered (that’s the only way he could describe it; she sauntered like a siren and he’d stared, transfixed at the sight and feeling himself get even harder if it was even possible) over to him, unbuttoning his white dress shirt (and scraping her teeth along his neck which made his hips buck up unconsciously). With another grin, she pushed it off his shoulders, motioning and helping him remove his t-shirt and pants and underwear. It’s not until he’s sat in the same position on the couch (at her urging) totally nude in front of her, that insecurity began to rear its ugly head again. He knew he was fitter than he used to be, courtesy of almost cutting out alcohol entirely ( he wasn’t borderline alcoholic anymore and that was good, he thought) and discovering a new passion for hiking out his frustrations in the L.A. desert (though he still wished it was the woods of Oklahoma most of the time but his girl lived here— and it was wonderful even having the thought— therefore so did he most of the time. Later on in their relationship she’d tell him she loves Oklahoma and he’d believe her while kissing her over and over and thinking of summers spent there when the boys are out of school.) Yet, he kept remembering Miranda’s words on that last night, the way she’d faked her orgasms even on their honeymoon, the way she never wanted to please him just wanted him in and out of her as quickly as possible, the way she’d always wanted the lights off, and was unsure about whether this was a good idea.

 

Gwen must have seen something in his face then (she was one of the most perceptive people he knew probably from being a mom and she seemed to get and soothe his insecurities before he even knew he was projecting them to her), because she straddled him again, giving him an impossibly filthy kiss (that made the half-mast erection he’d gone down to with his mulling come back to full mast with a vengeance), before sinking to her knees on the carpeted floor of his living room. He’d try to pull her up then, starting to say that she didn’t have to do it (because he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done this, probably when he was twenty-one and it hadn't been all that good), but she pushed his hands into her hair from his shoulders, kissing down his chest with red lipstick-less lips. She’d sucked on a nipple, nipping at it and huffing out a laugh when he let out a surprised noise. She kissed down his chest then, nosing at the crease of his thigh and taking a deep breath in and inhaling. She’d laid wet kisses across his balls, french kissing up his cock, and finally taken him into her mouth (they’d had the STD talk long ago; she said with an embarrassed blush that she didn’t tend to get involved sexually without complete trust but that she had just been tested and was clean and on their next date he'd given her his clean test results and grinned when she'd hugged him and nudged kisses across his ear). 

 

Blake couldn't help the low moan that escaped him then, arching his hips off of his couch (that was “so ugly ass” as Gwen had said laughing and laughing back he’d agreed but said that he couldn’t find another one big enough to fit his body even though he’d love to have a black leather one. What he didn't know was that she’d get him one for his birthday, a beautiful thing that fit the both of them, her three boys and Betty just perfectly). She’d taken the arch of his hips  beautifully, simply pulling back a little and letting him fuck into her mouth a bit. His breath had come at the speed of a marathon runner and his hands had shot for purchase anywhere they could, hovering over her hair for a minute before she looked up at him cock still in her mouth and put his fingers in her hair and pulled a little to show she liked it. 

 

Mortifyingly, he found himself close to coming within a minute of her sucking on him, making little vibrating whimpers every time he pulled gently at her hair. He’d pulled with purpose then, trying to arch away from her while trying his best not to embarrass himself like a horny fourteen year old. She’d looked up at him again and grinned a little, and that had been it. With a throaty breath, he’d come harder than he ever had before, fucking into her mouth and throwing his head back with his eyes shut. He'd come to the world again a few seconds later, feeling the universe spin back into focus as she pressed kiss after kiss into his cheeks (she’d come back up to straddle him and wasn’t that the icing on top of the cake, the fact that he hadn’t even noticed that she’d moved. This _definitely_ bade well for her desire to ever blow him again, he thought sarcastically). He’d felt his face turn a near beet red, and he covered his face.

 

“ God, i’m sorry, “ He murmured through his fingers. Holy fuck, he couldn’t even look at her. She’d been so incredible, and it had been _so long_ (a year and half to be exact) that he’d come like a teenager at the first bit of affection from her. 

 

He then felt her thin fingers pull his hands away from his face and she pulled his chin to look up at her. She’d offered no platitudes, no embarrassing reassuring words or assurances it was okay (Blake thinks that might have made it worse and he doesn’t even know why), but instead grinds down into him so he can feel how wet she is. 

 

“You, “ she grinds, “ are,” another grind, “ hot, “ she finishes with a breathy moan. He feels  himself grin then despite his lingering embarrassment, and he cups her face and kisses her deeply, using every trick in his arsenal. 

 

He eventually licks at her clit while curling his fingers into her, and she doesn't moan like a porn star. She doesn’t grab her breasts or fidget wildly or make sure her hair is perfectly arranged. She lets out beautiful half-choked breaths and her face gets oily with sweat and her hair looks like it’s been half slept in and her mascara runs underneath her eyes. She spasms when she orgasms, digging her heel into his back and he feels her clench deeply underneath his mouth. He feels wetness flood his mouth and he laps at her, savoring her taste while he looks up at her body. She’s incredible, she’s exquisite, and she’s his. He curls a proprietary hand around her hip as she finishes, laying kisses along the inside of her thigh when she’s too sensitive to touch. 

 

He wraps his arms around her then, standing up and urging her legs around his waist as he walks them easily upstairs and towards his bedroom (she’s so light, he’s determined to feed her up a little more because despite the fact that he thinks she’s gorgeous like she is he knows Gavin liked her whipcord thin and that as a result she’s spent years denying herself anything and everything she wants. He decides to find out her favorite comfort food and make it for her on their next date and then feed her ice cream as they sit by his fireplace). With a grin, he deposits her on the bed, laughing a little when she pulls him down with her for another long make-out.

 

That evening, for the first time that he can remember, he is hard again after just a few minutes of kissing her, and she urges him into her and lets out more of those choked breaths as he brings her to another orgasm and and she pulls his insecurities out through his dick with every movement in her. He kisses her brow and they sleep for awhile, waking up off and on to fuck each other again, alternating between slow and sensual (he can’t stop kissing her and he gets to swallow her moans through his mouth) and fast and frantic (she grasps the headboard until her knuckles turn white and she dirty talks into his ear and he comes so hard he sees shooting stars around his vision as it goes black). They sleep in until noon the next morning, and they lie in bed and talk. He finds out her favorite junk food is cinnamon rolls and that Gavin had told her she was lousy in bed (he kisses her tears away then as she sheds them and as he stares at her he thinks she understands his past with Miranda without even having to ask but he decides to tell her one day, just not now,  but when he’s ready). He finds out that her skin is naturally very oily and that she has to wash her hair absolutely every day or else it looks like she hasn’t washed it in a week (he’s the one to scrub shampoo into her scalp that afternoon as she practically purrs into him and he wishes he had it in him to go again but he really doesn’t and neither does she, given how sensitive she seems to be). 

 

He finds out so little and so much about her, his beautiful blonde vixen. As he watches her sleep, she doesn’t look perfect. Her mouth is hanging open and she drools a little and her hair is frizzing around her head already from the humidity and her skin is already building up oil. But she’s beautiful; gorgeous; human. He wants to know everything, every wound Gavin put into her that he can bandage, every sore he can soothe, every tear her ex caused he could kiss away. He wants to tell her about Miranda and cry in her arms, a cleansing cry. He wants to know her boys better and rock Apollo to sleep and spend nights cuddled on the couch watching a Disney movie. 

 

He wants everything. He wants life. With her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my lifeblood! Please comment!


	4. Blake Greatly Exaggerates Each Time He's Sick Just So Gwen Will Take Care of Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OTP Question: Who greatly exaggerates each time they're sick just so the other will take care of them?

 

Gwen had never been so happy, yet she realized Blake had been on his best behavior for months. Don’t get her wrong, she knew Blake well enough from before they started dating to know his faults ( a mostly dormant now propensity to drink too much, a lack of filter between his mouth and his brain, the tendency to not think about any secondary meanings of the words he types on Twitter, just to name a few) but they’ve lived in a blissful bubble of romance since he first asked her out self-consciously back in September. She knows he’s being extra careful around her, trying to do things like always close the toilet seat and pick up after himself and be nothing but nice to all three of her boys even when they’re being brats like kids can be.  

 

She knows about 90% of his great behavior is just part of his personality. She can’t believe anyone like him was ever treated the way he was (although he hasn’t told her a ton of information she gleams it from glances and behaviors and actions that his previous relationships have obviously done a number on his self esteem), and sometimes think she doesn’t deserve him (though the press make comments about him not deserving her, most of the time she thinks it’s the other way around). She knows he’s unfailingly nice and humble and kind and nurturing (if anyone was born to be a father he was). She knows he genuinely loves her kids and is usually a pretty neat person and loves the fact that she’s independent and feisty. 

 

But still, she’s waiting for glimpses of the totally human Blake; something that annoys her perhaps, or something that shows that he’s as flawed as everyone else in the world. She already knows a lot about him. She knows his food preferences, knows he has a hell of a sweet tooth and is allergic to all fish and loves fajitas. She knows his music preferences, knows that his taste is more eclectic than anyone realized and that although he respects all country singers he doesn’t like all of them. She’s sang Fleetwood Mac at the top of her lungs with him in the car and they’ve both known every word. She knows he believes in God like she does but doesn’t like how a lot of Christians behave, just like she doesn’t. She knows he’s a little bit emotional (though she’d never brought it up and he’s obviously uncomfortable with it and tries to hide it) and pours his heart out into his songs (any fan knew that just from listening to the ones he wrote for Miranda; Miranda never seemed to be flattered by any of them the way that Gwen thinks she should have been). She knows he hogs all the covers and lets out rumbling little snores when he’s particularly tired and comfortable. 

 

Despite all her knowledge, however, she thinks, if she’s going to spend the rest of her life with this man (and she thinks she might want to; she knows that they’ll probably be engaged by next Christmas and she’s perfectly ok with it—no, looking forward to it), she needs to see him in his entirety and he needs to see all of her. 

 

It happens on a Wednesday night. They’ve gotten back from their trip to Anaheim with her family and Blake was a smash hit. He made Apollo giggle endlessly and he got pizza sauce on his nose (when no one was looking she’d leaned over and sucked it off gently before cupping his cheek) and he stopped for pictures for anyone in the town who asked. Her friends love him; they think he’s sweet and treats her the way she deserves. Her family (especially her parents) love him too; he’s more of a hit than Gavin with his reserved and serious personality ever was. Her family is big loud and Italian, and Blake fits in better than Gavin ever did. They carry the kids to the car half asleep, Apollo’s arms wrapped tightly around Blake’s neck and one hand holding him up while the other holds on to Zuma’s hand ( Zuma had grabbed Blake’s hand even before hers and Apollo had held out his arms for Blake and Gwen had started to make a comment about being passed over for a cowboy until she saw the awed and honored look on his face as he picked Apollo up with reverent arms and emotional eyes. She decided the teasing would be for another day, when Blake wasn’t so fragile when faced with the love of the children that she’d gotten to experience for eleven years.) They set up the children in the backseat before Blake gets in the driver’s seat, pulling out of the lot and going over to Gavin’s, where Gwen drops the children off with him for the weekend (Blake had actually suggested that they all spend New Year’s Eve together watching the ball drop and Gwen’s flattered and falls a little more in love when he seems genuinely disappointed that they're with Gavin that weekend). 

 

Given that the children aren't home, Gwen knows Blake planned something incredibly romantic, though he won't tell her what. He's been secretive about the contents of the trunk of his car and his fourth guest room in his house, and he’s been running errands without her more often than not lately. All she gets out of him is that she needs to dress up for the night (she’s bought a beautiful Grecian style Vivienne Westwood with a high neck and a back that dips down to right above her ass; she’s looking forward to seeing his face as she stands before him in black), and that they’re going to be staying at home (she almost thinks this is better; as much as she loves going out sometimes on New Years, this year she’s looking forward to being able to make out with him as much as she wants without prying eyes or filming teenagers on their iPhones. 

 

He’s a little quiet after they drop the boys off, and Gwen has to squeeze his hand a few times with hers before he looks away from the road briefly and to her. Her smile fades a little when she looks at his face. He’s pale and a little sweaty, his blue eyes dulled a bit and the bags under his eyes more pronounced. She asks him if he’s okay and he smiles that dimpled smile at her, simply telling her that he’s tired. She scratches her nails a little up his arm and feels the gooseflesh pimple on it and grins. 

They get to her house and change for bed (she’s not going to press him for sex tonight even though she was kind of looking forward to it; she figures he’s exhausted in the way only family can make you and that this way it will make the anticipation greater for when he gets to peel the four thousand dollar dress off of her body tomorrow night). He spoons up against her the way he always does, and she falls asleep to the sound of his heartbeat and the warm, woodsy scent of him.

 

She wakes with a start some hours later, with the sense that something is wrong. It’s still pitch black outside, and when she reaches for her glasses to see the clock, she sees that its only two thirty in the morning. That’s when she realizes Blake isn’t in bed with her. He usually sleeps like the dead (at least with her; she’s taken pride in the fact that he looks less tired and the bags under his eyes disappear with every night spent in her arms). Getting up, she throws on a thin cotton robe to ward off the chill of the night and goes looking for him. He’s not in the living room, or the master bathroom, or the balcony. It’s when she goes up the second set of stairs to look out the window and find out if he’s left for some strange reason that she sees it. The light in her second guest room and attached bathroom is on. Furrowing her brow, she walks over to it and opens the door. She’s greeted by the scent of vomit and the sound of retching. When she walks over to the open bathroom door, she sees him on his knees in front of the toilet, retching helplessly into the bowl. 

 

With a concerned noise, she goes over to him and puts her hand on his back. It’s a testament to how sick he is that he doesn’t notice her until then, and his back jumps under her hand. He lifts his head and his eyes are glassy and his face is more pale and clammy than she’s ever seen it. He’s sweaty and his curls are half matted to his head, half frizzed around him.

 

“ Gwen w—“ He pales again and leans back over the bowl, throwing up more into it. She rubs his back, waiting for him to be done with this bout. With a grimace, he flushes, resting his head on his pillowed arms on the seat for a minute. She kneels down with him, running her fingers through his hair as he shivers. 

 

“ Whatsa matter?” She coos gently. After he swallows a few times, he lifts his head. 

 

“ I dunno. Must’ve been somethin’ I ate back in Anaheim, “ he drawls, hoarse. With another shallow breath, he sits back a little.  Gwen furrows her brow again.

 

“ Wonder if the boys are sick too, “ She murmurs, still running her fingers through his hair. He leans into it a little like an overgrown cat. Suddenly, her eyes widen. “ Holy shit, the sauce, “ he goes a little green at the mention of food but he lets it go. “ The sauce that Roberto makes for the pizza has anchovies in it, fish Blake,” he pales and his eyes widen. “ Is this what usually happens to you when you eat fish? Oh my god i’m so sorry I didn't even think!” He nods at her question and suddenly he gets a look in his eye that she recognizes from years of children before she finishes her apology. Within seconds, he’s retching again, his whole body shaking with the force of his illness.  When this bout is done (it seems to go on longer than the last and Gwen gets sympathy pains just thinking about how horrible he must feel) he flushes again and sits limp, leaning agains the tub. 

 

“ Ya dun hav’stay,” He mumbles. She takes his hand. She tries to look in his eyes but they’re half closed in exhaustion and facing the floor. She moves over to sit right next to him, wrapping one arm around his larger frame and rubbing the other hand over his knees where they’re up with his feet flat on the floor.

 

“ Blake God knows i’ve seen enough puke from my kids to stop being grossed out by it anymore.” He half-heartedly smiles. She scratches her nails gently over his back, and he sighs, deep and weary. They sit there a moment, the only sound in the room the sound of the fan that clicks on in the bathroom automatically with the lights.

 

“ ‘Randa always left the house when I was sick like this,” He finally bites out, words still half drawled half mumbled. It takes her a minute to really understand what he’s saying, and her heart bleeds a little for him. She brings a hand to rub over the nape of his neck, gentle and comforting. She waits for him to say more if that’s what he wanted. “ She always said that ’twas my own damn fault if I was stupid enough to eat somethin’ wit’ fish’n’et,” He said. Her heart broke a little more.

 

“ Blake you didn’t know. If its anyone’s fault it’s mine for not remembering about the fucking sauce, “ She’s kicking herself, but quite honestly she’s not used to having to worry about his allergies. Gavin didn’t have any and neither did her kids. 

 

Blake shrugs a little then. “ Still shoulda tasted it,” He says, and he rocks a little back and forth. She scratches her nails into his scalp again and he lets out another sigh. “ Ya really don’t hafta stay, you should go back ta bed.” He sounds sad yet resigned about it, like that’s the way it’s always been and he shouldn’t expect anything different. With a glance at his face to see how likely it is that he’s going to throw up again anytime soon (possible but not within a few minutes if she’s any judge of illness and she thinks she’s perceptive in the way only moms can be), she pulls his body to rest against hers and his head to rest on her shoulder. It forces him to straighten his legs out to the other side, but hell her bathroom’s big. The obvious pain he’s in from any movement is worth it to him (she can tell) from the way he inhales a little in surprise before sinking into her embrace like an oasis in the desert. He nuzzles his nose into her neck a little and shuts his eyes, letting out half-audible miserable whimpers every now and then.

 

They sit like that until the early hours of the morning. He throws up four more times and she’s there to rub his back and give him lukewarm water to swish around his mouth each time. She gets concerned about him losing so many fluids but he assures her this is normal for when he eats fish. Once he finally seems to be done (for the moment; the way he’s reluctant to leave the bathroom tells her it’s not over yet), she leads him back to bed and tucks him in, sitting beside him with her whole body touching his. She texts her assistant and tells her to bring gatorade, chicken soup, crackers, ginger tea and candies, and bananas over to her house. She tucks her arm around his neck and he nuzzles his face into her breast, quickly falling asleep.

 

Thursday evening, instead of the romantic evening Blake had planned (he’d tell her later that he’d rented a tux and strewn his house with orchids—her favorite— and hired someone to come and set up a thousand LED candles and ordered a bottle of $400 champagne and bought her a Harry Winston necklace and she’d almost be brought to tears by the very idea of such a romantic gesture), it’s him on the couch still in his pajamas, hair curling fuzzily from the shower, with his head in her lap. It’s her in sweatpants and no makeup, running her fingers through his hair. It’s him almost throwing up at her feet before he makes it to the bathroom in time. It’s her coaxing him to drink small sips of Gatorade out of a straw and it’s him so weak he can barely hold his head up.

 

But, she thinks. She’s finally found his humanity. She’s finally realized all that is him, complete with vomit and sweat stinking skin and a six-foot-five man who’d never been nurtured in his life.  If possible, she falls more in love with him for his humanity, for the fact that he vomits and gets miserable just like everyone else.

 

After he’d gotten over it, he’d be self-conscious about the way he acted and looked and she’d shut him up with a kiss to his forehead after she’d practically pulled him down to her level. He sinks into the nurturing with an eagerness that she doesn’t suspect until she realizes he’s exaggerating every other time he gets sick just so she cuddles him. She tells him that he can just ask for care taking and he blushes and gets self-conscious and she knows he won’t. It drives her nuts and endears him to her at the same time, the fact that for every little cold she has to wipe his forehead with a damp cloth and sit still for hours as he naps with his head in her shoulder or her breast or her lap. 

 

Later on, years later, they’ll bicker about how emotionally stunted he is. But for now, there’s him and her and love and laughter. There’s humanity and faults. There’s the knowledge that the both of them are in it for the long haul, rock steady.

 


	5. Gwen smells the hell out of Blake's shirts and pretends she doesn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OTP Question: Who smells the hell out of the other's shirts when they're gone and pretends they don't?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's it for this story folks! I know no one was expecting an update until Sunday but my muse took ahold of me. I'm still thinking of another story, but should have one by next Wednesday to upload at the latest if not before then. To all Shefani authors, please write more! We need you :).

One of the things Blake was discovering about Gwen was how she brought out kinks he never knew he had. From wet tongue kisses to slightly pulling his hair to biting at his chest, every night was a new adventure as he discovered more of the things that brought him from half hard to the razor’s edge of orgasm. She was so perceptive, so attuned with his moods and his insecurities and his personality, that she seemed to know what was going to give him pleasure and what he didn’t care for. She picked up on every time he needed a hug or a kiss, picked up on every single time he was feeling maudlin or missing Miranda or yearning for the wide open spaces of Oklahoma while he was in L.A. She soothed his wounds and his hurts, kissed away his tears when he’d had a nightmare about her and her kids being killed in a car accident like his brother Richie was and leaned against him as they laughed themselves to tears when Apollo got ahold of Blake’s guitar and tried to play “Gonna” while singing the words totally wrong as the bird sat on his shoulder and tweeted along. 

 

In turn, he learned a lot about her. He learned she liked her kisses with a bit of edge too and loved tongue kisses almost as much as he did; he learned her favorite sex position was riding his lap while he sat against the headboard and kissed her lips or her breasts. He learned that she loved chocolate especially around her time of the month and the quickest way to get a kiss was to bring her dark chocolate mint truffles. He learned that she laughed and cried easily, that she was as unfailingly nice to fans as he’d first suspected but she hated when her kids were involved in her celebrity. He learned she truly loved makeup and fashion but loved boots and sweatpants just as much. 

 

One of his biggest kinks, however, turned out to be one of those that he didn't even know he had until six months into their relationship. He didn’t even discover that she was doing it for a long time, or that it turned him on and made him want to fuck her immediately. 

 

He’d been leaving for a week long tour stop throughout the Midwest. It was going to be an exhausting week; he’d be performing 6 out of the 7 days he was gone, each in a different state to different crowds, and although he was looking forward to the cheers and the excitement of being onstage he knew he’d be drop dead exhausted when he got back. He walked around his bedroom, putting final things into his bag while Gwen sat on his bed, legs crossed, watching him with maudlin eyes. He had to leave in twenty minutes, and it was amazing how even days apart made them sad and lonely, missing each other like a limb that had been amputated (he knew he wasn’t going to sleep as well without her and that the bags under his eyes would come back and that was part of what he wasn't looking forward to although he was excited for the tour). Her eyes never left his body, and even as he was distracted with making sure he had everything he still saw her out of the corner of his eye watching him. She had on no makeup today and was sporting sweatpants and a tank top with no bra, hair messily piled on top of her head. She was exquisite. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her bite her lip before sighing deeply. 

 

Blake furrowed his brow, rummaging through his closet with increasingly frustrated motions. “Itsa damnedest thing,” he muttered half to himself, and when she made a questioning noise he elaborated, “ I cant find my teal plaid shirt, you know the one with the navy blue?” He looked in his hamper again, around on the floor behind his boots (he was neat but not anal about it; but he was sure if it had fallen down there he would have noticed).  He huffed, crossing his arms. “ I was sure I had it in my closet this mornin’, and I wanted to wear it in Ohio.” He shut the light off, walking out of it and shutting the door, still half preoccupied. He looked around his large bedroom one more time. “ Gwen you haven’t seen it have you? Because I really w—“ He was cut off when she stood up in the middle of his sentence, coming over to him in bare feet and wrapping her arms around his neck before standing up on her tiptoes to stick her tongue in his mouth in a filthy kiss. He groaned deeply into it despite himself, and wrapped his arms around her waist to lift her up so they had less of a height difference. Her legs came around his waist so he didn’t have to hold her up with the strength of his arms and her nails scratched through his hair. She broke apart from him and gave him an eskimo kiss across his nose.

 

“ I’m gonna miss you, like, so much, “ She muttered, nuzzling her nose into his neck now. He squeezed her tighter, rubbing his large hand up and down her back soothingly.

 

“ Me too Darlin’,” he muttered. He really was. It was amazing how quickly he’d gotten used to her in his life every day, how easy it was to spend every second with her and not get tired of her or sick of her or irritated by her. She was perfect for him in every way that mattered, and he knew he was probably in it for the rest of his life (he’d in fact bought an engagement ring on a total impulse while shopping with Adam for a birthday present for Bee at Harry Winston; he’d seen it and it had screamed Gwen so much that he’d brought it despite Adam’s taunts and teases. The forty thousand dollars it had cost him had been so worth it. He wasn’t going to propose yet, no it was too soon, but he was thinking about it on her next birthday, when they’d been dating about a year. That is, if she didn’t dump his ass first, which in the deepest recesses of his subconscious he was constantly afraid of). She kissed his neck then, a wet kiss with a little scrape of teeth, and almost at once their embrace went from tender to passionate. He squeezed her ass, nudging her face up with his so he could kiss her hungrily. She panted, trying to grind against him but not getting much leverage.

 

“ Do you have time?” She muttered in between pants and her tongue in his mouth, nails scratching at his hair and his hands squeezing her ass rthymically in a fucking motion. He grinned through the kiss, walking over and sitting on his bed with his feet on the floor and letting her grind harder against him.

 

“ Always darlin’,” She grinned back, and he’d cupped her breasts through her tank top. 

 

He’d barely made it to his car in time and his hair was still wet from his shower and his shirt was a little damp from having her cry slightly against it as she hugged him by his front door. The boys were with Gavin on a vacation in England all week, and Blake had said (no encouraged) her to stay at his house as long as she wanted while he was gone. 

 

It wasn’t until he was on his plane and texting Gwen an embarrassingly mushy miss you text that he realized he never found his shirt. 

 

The shirt had been back in his closet, laundered and hanging up, when he’d gotten back. He’d been totally puzzled for a moment before Gwen pulled him back to her naked body by his shirtsleeves and he’d forgotten all of why he’d come into the closet at all.

 

It happened again a month later, when he was leaving for a hunting trip with Luke and Chris. He was at her house this time, and he’d gone through the stuff of his that had migrated to her house (and the thought made him warm inside and made his face break out into a smile despite himself). He scratched at his face absentmindedly. 

 

“ God da-“ He’d glanced over at Apollo then who was sitting in her sitting room chair attached to  her bedroom, watching a cartoon and sucking on his thumb. Gwen threw him a sharp glance where she was  reading paperwork and he amended his words, “ darnit,” he finished.  “ Have ya seen my red and black plaid shirt? I can’t find it anywhere!” He exclaimed, frustrated. “ I know I brought it over here. Thought it was in the drawer,” He sighed deeply and looked over to Gwen, who shrugged while not taking her eyes off her papers. 

 

Apollo looked over at him then and smiled wide, making Blake smile despite himself as they made a few seconds of eye contact. Blake loved Gwen’s youngest like he was his own, and he hoped Apollo felt even one tenth of the affection for Blake that Blake felt for him. The happy moment was broken when Apollo opened his mouth. 

 

“ God Damnit!” Apollo exclaimed proudly, taking his thumb out of his mouth and smiling wide. Blake’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open, as did Gwen’s from where she was seated on the couch by Apollo looking at some papers. Blake found himself starting to laugh despite himself, and looked over at Gwen. She’d had a mad expression for a second but then started laughing too although she was trying not to, covering her mouth with one hand. Pretty soon all three of them were laughing, and Blake couldn't do anything but walk over to them, sitting down between Gwen and Apollo on one end of the couch with Gwen on his right and Apollo on his left in the chair. They laughed like that for a few seconds before Gwen hit him with her rolled up papers.

 

“ You're teaching my kid to swear,” Blake put his hands up in a ‘surrender' gesture. They both were still smiling despite themselves.

 

“ I corrected it, blame the bigger dudes,” He drawled. It was true. Both Zuma and Kingston had discovered the power of swear words, and Gwen was having to constantly tell them to knock it off. Blake had a feeling that they learned it from their dad (Gavin had a mouth worse than Blake’s had ever been and he wasn’t as careful around the kiddos as Blake was), but Blake wasn't going to verbalize it (and he didn’t think he needed to).  Gwen snuggled under his outstretched arm then, and Apollo jumped on his lap with an “oof”, and he forgot all about his shirt.

 

It was the third time when he finally caught her. He’d come back early from some work on his ranch (she couldn’t join him, she’d had meetings up the wazoo and he had been so disappointed but so had she. He'd brought her back a bouquet of wildflowers from his neighbor’s garden in consolation and had carefully preserved them on the plane ride home). As it was only six and two days before he had planned to come home, and he’d known that the kids were with Gavin, he took his key Gwen had given him a month and a half ago (he’d been moved to near tears and had taken out the key to his own house he’d been keeping in his pocket for her and hadn’t given to her out of nerves. She’d smiled and kissed him firmly, hands wrapping around his around the keys) and let himself in. The lights were on in the house and Blake knew she was home. Hearing noise from the kitchen, he toed off his boots and locked the door behind him, toeing into the kitchen. What he saw when he got in there made him stop, his mouth dropping open and his face reddening.

 

She was wearing his shirt. Not just any shirt, but the exact grey and black plaid one he had been looking for before he left for this trip to Oklahoma. By the looks off it, she was wearing nothing else while dancing around the kitchen listening to Fleetwood Mac.  She stirred something in a pot with a spoon and danced back to the sink, hair in a messy braid and glasses on. She hadn’t showered that day, that was obvious by the light sheen of oil on her hair. She’d never looked more beautiful in her entire life. He’d found himself wanting to laugh, becoming instantly hard, and being filled with such a tenderness all at the same time, and it took him a second to get words out. The music was up so loud it was obvious she hadn’t heard him, and so all he said as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe was, “ Lookie here,” in a low drawl. His eyes ran up and down her body.

 

She screamed, shrill and bright, throwing her spoon full of some kind of sauce or soup up in the air behind her as she whipped around, the shirt parting a little to reveal the tops of milky thighs and red lace underwear. Putting a hand to her chest, she leaned against the sink, panting.

 

“ Oh my god you scared me to death! What are you doing here?!?!” She said shrilly, starting to laugh a little in a way that made her mouth widen and her eyes crinkle. He sauntered over to her, picking up the spoon as he went and setting it in the sink behind her body before wrapping his arms around her waist.

 

“ I missed the hell outta you so I hired the rest’a the work out,” He drawled, looking down at her. She looked up at him in a way he could only see as adoring (and it was mirrored in his own face, he knew), and kissed him, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing his ass. She tasted like  her mom’s famous chili and red wine, and Blake couldn’t get enough. He couldn’t resist having some fun with her, though. He broke away, arching an eye brow. “ So that’s where my shirts are goin’, huh?” He teased. He watched her pale skin redden and her eyes dart away from him. He poked fun at her a little more. “ If ya wanted some’a your own all ya had to do was ask, darlin’” He teased again, hands tightening at the small of her back. She tucked her nose into his shoulder then and he stroked her hair.

 

“ mph mphhh mph mphh, “ She mumbled into his shoulder. He laughed a little.

 

“ What did you say beautiful?” She removed her nose only enough so he could hear her.

 

“ They smell like you and I miss you when you’re gone, “ She murmured, looking up at him. He unexpectedly felt his eyes fill a little and a smile that brought out every bit of his dimples light up his face. At that moment, he was happier than he’d ever been in his entire life, and it was all because of this woman. He’d always thought he was forever destined to be the one who loved more, the one who cherished and worshipped and adored while simply being _liked a lot_ in return. That was the way it had been with Miranda (and he remembered every time he had gone to kiss her on stage and she had turned away and only reluctantly allowed him to kiss her cheek), and he thought that was the way it was with every woman he was going to date. Meeting Gwen had changed that. He asked for a divorce not for her but because she made him realize that there were people out there who adored each other and that he deserved someone who adored him the way he adored them. Although they were different musically and geographically, Gwen adored him the way he adored her, and the thought made him so emotional sometimes it was all he could do to squeeze her tight. This was one of those times, and he buried his face in her hair and inhaled and squeezed her. 

 

“ I love you, “ He bit out. This was the first time he was going to say it, and he hoped to God she said it back because he didn’t know what she was going to do if she didn’t. She laughed then, a bright happy sound that erased every bit of unhappiness from his life.

 

“ I love you too, “ she said firmly, and they kissed and kissed and as Blake ran his hand up her thigh underneath his shirt he swore he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He was hooked on her, and her love was the remedy for all the tragedies of his entire life. 

 

The last thing he thought before his senses were consumed by her moans and whimpers as he took her against the kitchen island was that he was probably going to propose sooner than October and he was pretty sure she was going to say yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is anyone else waiting for mushy pictures from New Years Eve of the two of them? *Raises hand and looks around * no one, no one? Oh well, guess it's just me :P.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'll indulge me, i'd like to go on a bit of an author's ramble: I was thinking about why I now think Blake has this magnetism that draws me to want to watch him perform when I don't think he did before and it hits me that it's because he's happy now.
> 
> Even with Miranda (at least most of the pictures I found) his smile always looked fake and he looked tired and unhappy. Not to rag on Miranda, but that's just how he looked to me. But if you look at his face when he's hugging Gwen or singing his songs to her or just being around her (read: if you're Shefani stalker trash like me) he just looks so damn happy about everything, and his smiles look real. That's what makes him a better performer and a bigger draw for me, personally. Anyways, rant over (I could probably put these things in my tumblr if I could only figure out how to run a damn tumblr; alas I am very technologically illiterate for being in my twenties).


End file.
